Part 44: I'm Your Moon

#42 - I'm Your Moon



Hello everyone and welcome to Brookdale. Today's update is different, because Sam is now talking. Or, rather, I'm talking through Sam.

For what it's worth, Brookdale is an exact replica of Rivershire that I made before the multiplayer event. So nothing that happens here will necessarily be reflected in Rivershire proper.



Also about five or six people decided the party house was a gathering spot.



I'll try to avoid showing the chat box too much. I know it's really tiresome reading chat logs.



The nine of us (eight in the screenshot, plus one more hanging above) and possibly any others that showed up will be showing off the two least fun pieces of content in Terraria. Content that is functionally impossible to solo while it's relevant.



So before the events kick off, someone was nice enough to launch some fireworks.



The moon events can only be started at night. Fortunately, Adrienne offered to make a giant gem to show off the "gem fight" mode.



If you combine 15 of any type of gem at an anvil, you can create a large gem that hovers over your character as long as you're in possession of it. If you then turn on PVP mode, you can engage in Terraria's deadliest game of tag ever.



While in multiplayer mode, the equipment screen gets some new additions. The six shields control what team you're on, if any, while the two swords control PVP being on or off.



Beating the shit out of each other is a pretty fun way to pass the time.





Eevee posted something about Santa having a tree in the chat, so I went to check it out and found this. His room looks so cozy now.



Someone didn't want to be outdone and stuck a tree down at the arena, where we started gathering as night was falling.

The arena never really expanded from when I built it for the Eye, and now it's definitely way too small. But on the other hand, everyone here is flight capable so I don't really think it matters too much.



An informal poll showed that everyone wanted to do the Pumpkin Moon first.





Gonna warn everyone reading now, this is where things break down entirely. It turns out that the Pumpkin Moon is an extremely laggy event, and when there's like 14 people on a single server all putting out as many particle effects as they can in a tiny area...

Well, you'll forgive me if I don't have a video of an event where I got 3 frames every 8 seconds.





The basic conceit is similar to other invasion events, except this one is wave based.

There are, I believe, 15 waves to clear in 9 minutes. If you can make it to wave 15 before the night ends, then the event just goes into overtime mode and keeps spawning wave 15 enemies until morning comes.

Each wave that spawns increases the drop rate as well, until finally at wave 15 it's 100% drop for everything. This sounds great, right? Well there's a catch. A massive, stupid catch. Once you hit overtime mode, only the two event bosses will spawn. In massive droves.



Here, it's just wave 1 and already my computer was struggling.

I'll try to be as informative as possible here, but we're almost at the point where I stopped recording in a vain attempt to create a playable framerate. So, instead, I'll just talk about the enemies that spawn.

Scarecrow - Between 400 and 650 life - Between 52 and 78 damage - Between 14 and 26 defense - (Most basic enemy in the event. Has 5 variations. Stops spawning on wave 11. Drops a scarecrow costume.)
Splinterling - 900 life - 100 contact damage - 32 defense - (Drops spooky wood. Starts spawning on wave 2. Stops spawning on wave 12.)
Hellhound - 1,200 life - 80 contact damage - 38 defense - (Drops only coins. Starts spawning on wave 3. Stops spawning on wave 13.)
Poltergeist - 2,000 life - 90 contact damage - 44 defense - (Starts spawning on wave 5. Stops spawning on wave 13.)
Headless Horseman - 10,000 life - 130 contact damage - 40 defense - (Drops a cosmetic pumpkin helmet. Starts spawning on wave 9. Stops spawning on wave 14. An unlimited number can spawn at once on wave 14.)
Mourning Wood - 12,000 life - 120 damage (melee). 100-150 damage (flaming wood). 80 damage (greek fire) - 28 defense - (Starts spawning on wave 4. NEVER STOPS SPAWNING. Unlimited numbers can spawn on wave 15. Has an entire drop table I'll cover below. Giant walking spooky tree.)
Pumpking - 22,000 life - 50 contact damage (body). 65 contact damage (arms). 80 damage (greek fire). 120 damage (scythes) - 36 defense - (Starts spawning on wave 7. NEVER STOPS SPAWNING. Unlimited numbers can spawn on wave 15. Has a separate drop table from Mourning Wood. Floating headless horseman thing?)



The Razorblade Typhoon apparently creates a lot of lag. Not helping matters were the Mourning Wood's framerate destroying particle effects.



This asshole right here. His branches are on fire. I think. It's impossible to tell what's even going on.



The Headless Horseman riding by.



Pumpking.



It's been an incredibly long time since I did a fullscreen image like this. So I want you to click on the picture above and take a good long look at it. That's wave 15 and I'm now stuck in the respawn room because of seven bosses spawn camping me.



That's the last shot I have of the pumpkin moon event. So let's instead talk about loot. What do you get for braving the event? For most of the drops, the upper bound is the chance on wave 15, where the boss will always drop at least one of its items.)

Mourning Wood

Spooky Wood - (30-50 pcs. 100% chance. Like regular wood, but spooky. 750 pieces can be used to craft the Spooky Armor set, which is a decent late hardmode summoner armor set.)
Cursed Sapling - (2-20% chance. Summons a mini Mourning Wood pet.)
Spooky Twig - (2-20% chance. Used to make Spooky Wings. Slightly better than frozen wings, nowhere near as good as Fishron Wings.)
Spooky Hook - (2-20% chance. 35 tile range and 15.5 tile launch velocity makes this tied for second best hook in the game. Can shoot 3 hooks out simultaneously. To compare, the Bat Hook we got in normal mode is 32 range and 15.5)
Necromantic Scroll - (2-20% chance. Increases maximum number of minions by 1, increases minion damage by 10%. Can also be combined with a Hercules Beetle (sold by witch doctor post Plantera) to create an even more powerful version with 15% increased damage. That's two of the three vital pieces of endgame summoner accessories right there.)
Stake Launcher - (2-20% chance. 75 ranged damage. Shoots stakes that pierce through 10 enemies. Has a base crit chance of 14%. Damage is increased to over 5,000 against vampire enemies.)
Stake - (100% chance with launcher. 30-60 drop at a time. 25 ranged damage. Ammo for the stake launcher, naturally. Also sold by the witch doctor (75 copper coins ea.) and arms dealer (15 copper coins ea.) with a stake launcher in your inventory.)
Mourning Wood Trophy - (100% chance. Drops in wave 15 only. If you make it that far, you will be swimming in these things.)

Pumpking

The Horseman's Blade - (1.79% - 14.29% chance. 75 melee damage. Before the 1.3 patch, it was the third strongest sword in the game, only beaten by True Night's Edge and the Terra Blade. Shoots homing projectiles, making it arguably stronger than the other two swords.)
Bat Scepter - (1.79% - 14.29% chance. 45 magic damage. Shoots homing bats. Basically the Halloween themed version of the Bee/Wasp Gun.)
Black Fairy Dust - 1.79% - 14.29% chance. Used to craft the Tattered Fairy Wings. Same "power" as the Spooky Wings from Mourning Wood.)
Spider Egg - (1.79% - 14.29% chance. Summons a pet spider.)
Raven Staff - (1.79% - 14.29% chance. 37 summon damage. Seems neat, but beaten out by easier to get drops.)
Candy Corn Rifle - (1.79% - 14.29% chance. 44 ranged damage. Shoots candy corn at enemies. Candy corn bullets ricochet around and pierce through enemies. High rate of fire and the bullets being affected by gravity give this gun dubious use.)
Candy Corn - (100% chance with rifle. Drops 50-100 at a time. 9 ranged damage. Bought from the arms dealer (5 copper coins ea.))
Jack 'O Lantern Launcher - (1.79% - 14.29% chance. 65 ranged damage. It's a grenade launcher that shoots explosive pumpkins. That's kind of awesome.)
Explosive Jack 'O Lantern - (100% chance with launcher. Drops 25-50 at a time. 30 ranged damage. Sold by arms dealer (15 copper coins ea.))
Pumpkin Trophy - (100% chance. Drops on wave 15 only.)



Picking up after the event ended, Brookdale is now a necropolis.



Here's a map of where the last deaths of the event occurred. You might notice a trend right next to the hellevator. That's the world spawn point.

I still count it as a victory, because we got to wave 15 and survived until morning. So we all gathered for a victorious group photo.



Wow, what a great photograph. It will always bring back the fondest of memories.

We're all gigantic nerds.



Brookdale also seems to be suffering from some pretty severe flooding problems. I think this one is Eevee's fault.



Anyway, in spite of the awful lag it was going to bring, we all decided to do the frost moon anyway.



The Frost Moon is similarly hard to screenshot, but for different reasons. Namely here, the event jumped three waves in as many seconds. Because I don't think I have a single shot of any of the enemies in here, I'll just talk about them instead.

For some reason, there are 12 enemies in this event, with 3 of them being bosses. All three bosses can show up in unlimited numbers on wave 20.

Zombie Elf - Between 500 and 700 life - Between 52 and 78 damage - Between 14 and 24 defense - (One of the two most basic enemies of the Frost Moon. Three variants. Drops a Christmas Elf cosmetic set. 3 variants. Stops spawning on wave 12.)
Gingerbread Man - 750 life - 90 damage - 26 defense - (Other basic enemy of the event. Stops spawning on wave 13.)
Elf Archer - 900 life - 70 damage (melee). 90 damage (ranged) - 30 defense - (Drops only coins. Starts spawning on wave 2. Stops spawning on wave 8.)
Nutcracker - Between 990 and 1800 life - Between 80 and 100 damage Between 26 and 42 defense - (Drops only coins. 2 variants. Starts spawning on wave 3. Stops spawning on wave 18.)
Elf Copter - 1,200 life - 60 damage (melee). 64 damage (ranged) - 28 defense - (Drops only coins. Starts spawning on wave 6. Stops spawning on wave 17.)
Present Mimic - 900 life - 100 damage - 32 defense - (Can spawn during any wave, as long as less than 4 Present Mimics are present.)
Krampus 2,500 life - 100 damage - 40 defense - (Starts spawning on wave 8. Stops spawning on wave 18.)
Yeti - 3,00 life - 140 damage - 50 defense - (Starts spawning at wave 12. Stops spawning at wave 19.)
Flocko - 450 life - 75 damage - 8 defense - (Tends to spawn with Ice Queen. Spawns by itself during waves 11, 13, and 16.)
Everscream - 13,000 life - 110 damage (melee). 80-105 damage (pine needles). 100-114 damage (ornaments) - 38 defense - (First of three bosses of the Frost Moon. Giant ambulatory Christmas tree. Starts spawning on wave 4.)
Santa-NK1 - 18,000 life - 120 damage (melee). 72 damage (chain gun). 160 damage (spike balls). 84 damage (missiles). 100 damage (presents) - 56 defense - (A giant Santa tank. Starts spawning on wave 7.)
Ice Queen - 34,000 life - 120 damage (melee). 84 damage (frost wave). 70-74 damage (frost shard) - 38 defense - (Starts spawning on wave 11. It's Elsa.)







The moon events are at least visually distinct. That's also all three bosses, along with several yeti. Anyway, onto the drop tables...

Everscream

Christmas Tree Sword - (5.19% - 7.78% chance. 86 melee damage. Throws Christmas ornaments when you swing it.)
Christmas Hook - (5.19% - 7.78% chance. Tied for the Spooky Hook with second best in the game.)
Razorpine - (5.19% - 7.78% chance. 48 magic damage. Shoots magical pine needles.)
Festive Wings - 1.11% - 1.67% chance. Strictly worse than the Pumpkin variants in every way. Glows in the dark, though.)
Everscream Trophy - (4.17% - 12.5% chance at wave 15+)

Santa-NK1

Elf Melter - (8.33% - 12.5% chance. 40 ranged damage. Literally a flamethrower. Consumes gel for fuel.)
Chain Gun- (8.33% - 12.5% chance. 31 ranged damage. 50% chance to not consume ammo. Basically the Megashark's bigger, meaner brother.)
Santa-NK1 Trophy - (4.17% - 12.5% chance at wave 15+)

Ice Queen

Snowman Cannon - (4.4% - 7.52% chance. 67 ranged damage. A rocket launcher that shoots snowmen rockets.)
North Pole - (4.4% - 7.52% chance. 73 melee damage. You throw a spear that arcs and drops damaging particle effects.)
Blizzard Staff - (4.4% - 7.52% chance. 58 magic damage. Basically calls down a storm of ice. It's really good.)
Baby Grinch's Mischief Whistle - (0.95% - 1.67% chance. You remember the Jim Carrey Grinch movie? Remember the baby Grinch version that was firmly in the uncanny valley? Yeah. This is a pet version of that exact abomination against nature.)
Reindeer Bells - (0.56% - 0.83% chance. Summons a ridable reindeer mount that can fly. This was actually the game's first mount.)
Ice Queen Trophy - (4.17% - 12.5% chance at wave 15+)



That's the moon events in a nutshell.



Honestly, both moon events are the worst content introduced to this game. They're massive, unfun slogs, full of enemies that are not remotely fun to fight. The rewards are hardly worth it, either.

They are, to date, the only content in the game that it's not strictly possible to solo before you outgear them. You can die until you win through attrition, but until you have postgame gear, it's almost impossible to survive at wave 15+ of either event.



I also was going to record another, watchable, version of both of these events. But I decided against it. It's not from an standpoint, but more from a "This content sucks and I resent having to do it a second time to record it, so I'm simply not going to." standpoint.

It was fun hanging out with everyone, though.



This, I think, is a fine stopping point for the update. I want to thank everyone who came out for the event, because it was an absolute blast hanging out with everyone.

This is also the last normal update for the LP. Everything else from here on is going to be endgame events. So strap in, because the next three updates are gonna be very interesting. Some may also be shorter than others as a necessity.

NEXT TIME: